Embracing the Unpredictable

It was a Tuesday afternoon. It was my day off from uni, and I had spent most of the day procrastinating on all my assignments that were due soon. It was just me and Mum who were home that afternoon, as the phone began to ring. Mum went to answer it, and I was listening very carefully from my bedroom door. She barely spoke two words, before she’d hung up the phone. Even though I was trying to dismiss the worst possible thoughts from my mind, I knew that this was going to be bad news.

It was three years ago today that my Mum approached me and told me that her sister had passed away unexpectedly in hospital. It was three years ago today that I experienced the first major loss in my life. And although it was three years ago today, in my mind it feels like it happened only yesterday. I remember feeling shocked. I remember feeling the knots in my stomach. And I remember the wave of emotion that flooded over me as the PowerPoint photos began to play at her funeral.

Three years have passed today, and one thing has stayed the same. Diabetes. I still live with it. I still deal with it day in, and day out. I still test. I still inject. I still correct. I still feel amazingly high and terribly low in the same day. And diabetes still tags along for the ride, and quite possibly will for the rest of my life.

Life with diabetes is full of predictable moments. And as terrible as this day was three years ago, it reminds me of the unpredictable nature of life. A better kind of unpredictable. Like the fact that the course of my life will not be ruled or defined by diabetes. Like the fact that I have achieved amazing, unpredictable things despite diabetes, and still can. And the fact that diabetes has given me incredible strength that I can draw upon to achieve anything I put my mind to.